


Seeing in Color

by MuxedoTask (MoonlitNight)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6056415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonlitNight/pseuds/MuxedoTask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world has been black and white for as long as Ray can remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing in Color

The world has been black and white for as long as Ray can remember.

 

He knows the world is actually in color- he just can’t _see_ it yet (no one his age can, or at least none of the children in his class) and there are some days (most) where he doesn’t care, and others where it’s just so damn _infuriating_.

He’d like to pretend he isn’t dying to know what color the sky is (he knows the word for it is blue, but picturing it is impossible) or what color his friends hair is and what a rainbow looks like because it sounds like it’d be one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen. He knows what color his eyes and hair are (brown and black, and even though it’s comforting to know he really wants nothing more than to _see_ them) and he knows the names of the basic colors, but only seeing in black and white makes him feel like something is missing.

That feeling doesn’t go away for years.

When Ray turns 18, he gets sick of it. He gets sick of waiting (his soul mate, the one who is supposed to turn his world from monochrome to Technicolor, he figures, while someone worth waiting for, is also someone he needs to stop _trying_ to find), so he stops.

He pushes the foreign concept of color out of his mind and instead focuses on the videos he makes- achievement guides, and on racking up a pretty god damn impressive gamer score, distracting himself from thoughts of a soul mate and instead working towards (hopefully) a job at the company he’d been following for so many years (only 3, really, but it feels like much more).

This is how he meets Michael.

At first, Michael is nothing special- not really. Just a funny **-** and angry- guy who makes good videos and is after the same thing Ray is- a job at Rooster Teeth (and is also a newbie compared to Ray, which is kind of refreshing).

They start talking more, finding out they have a lot in common and generally make great friends. They begin playing games together, and Ray forgets about soul mates completely for a while because, fuck, who needs a soul mate when you’ve got a best friend? And aren’t they sort of the same thing- just platonic- anyway?

Their friendship goes on like this, and when Ray is 20 and Michael is 23 (about a year after they first met), Ray comes to two realizations.

The first is that Ray has, somehow, fallen a little bit in love with Michael, and he doesn’t know how the fuck that happened or when and seriously, _what the fuck_? What happens if Michael doesn’t feel the same? What happens if he _does?_ And what about their friendship? That’s one thing Ray is really desperate _not_ tofuck up.

The second realization makes the first one a bigger problem. He finds out, during one of his and Michael’s late night talks, that Michael lives in New Jersey, which is only a train ride away from Ray’s apartment in Queens, and hearing this, of _course_ Michael wants to meet up. And Ray won’t lie- he wants to meet up too, (for their ‘bro date’ as Michael is calling it) but he’s _afraid_.

Afraid he will fall harder and he’ll have to tell Michael about his feelings he wants so badly to contain (but also wants to set free) - and so he spends the following days thinking- about what he will do when Michael gets there, about his feelings and as he does this, a revelation comes to mind, one that Ray is desperate to believe but scared to put faith in.

Because what if, when he thinks about how Michael makes him feel (warm, safe, _happy_ , even from miles away, even if the miles were few) Michael feels the same about him, and what if that’s okay because what if- (he knows he’s getting crazy with the what-ifs here but he just can’t stop _thinking_ ) and Ray doesn’t know if he dares even hopes that this is true- but what if Michael- angry, hot-headed _amazing_ Michael is his soul mate?

That would be irony if he ever fucking saw it- when he decides to forget about soul mates rather than worry and wonder incessantly, and finds a wonderful distraction in the form of Michael Jones, of course THAT is when he would _finally_ find his soul mate, and of course it would the very distraction that would _actually be_ his soul mate.

  _Checkmate, universe,_ he thinks, a small smile on his face, _ya fuckin’ got me._

The night before Michael is supposed to come down, Ray finds himself unable to sleep normally. He wakes up every few hours and he hates it because _of course_ the one night he wants and needs a normal night’s sleep he’s not gonna get it. At around 4 am he gives up, gives two middle fingers to the ceiling as a ‘fuck you’ to the universe, and plays Xbox and drinks Red Bull until the sun comes up and until he needs to get dressed, and by then the worry has slowly (very slowly) morphed into excitement.

He starts the walk with a spring in his step, and listens to music to pass the time as he walks toward the train station.

He gets to the station about 5 minutes before the train is scheduled to arrive, so he stands around, one headphone in his ear, the other dangling loosely in front of his stomach, swinging as he nervously shifts from foot to foot and rocks back and forth on his heels.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been this nervous about meeting someone before (especially someone he already fucking _knows_ ) but at the same time, he’s never liked someone this much before, either. Before he can get _too_ nervous (like sick to his stomach nervous), he hears the train and tenses lightly as he watches it pull up and grind to halt.

His eyes dart around nervously as he scans for the familiar head of hair he’s seen in so many pictures, and he finally spies the mop of hair slowly descending the train steps, and he smiles lightly.

As soon as his eyes make contact with Michael’s hair, the world seems…brighter. As if the world is no longer in monochrome, but just very, very low saturation. There are colors, but the world still mainly looks like sepia-tone rather than full on colorful, but it’s still a welcome change from the dull whites, grays and blacks that he’s been seeing his whole life, and to him it’s beautiful. Ray gasps and takes a step back as he processes what’s happening because _fuck,_ are you fucking serious?

Ray watches as Michael continues walking toward him, and his breath hitches when Michaels head lifts up and his eyes meet Michael’s for the first time.

The whole sequence, as cliché as it is, felt like it happened in slow motion for Ray. As Michael walked closer to him, the world slowly began to grow more colorful, almost like a watercolor painting. The colors were bleeding in on the edges of his vision, watered down but recognizable. When Michael lifted his head up and locked eyes, Ray almost stumbled backward from the force of the color suddenly becoming bright and vivid.

Before he could blink, Michael was suddenly in vivid color (and by the way Michael’s eyes widened Ray was probably in vivid color too) - his hair suddenly bright auburn (though Ray didn’t know the name of the color at the time), his skin full of color and freckles that dotted his arms and dusted his cheeks, and his tattoos finally showing the colors they were meant to (speaking of which, holy _fuck_ Link was way cooler in color) and he was _beautiful._ Ray briefly wonders when he got so gay, but he sees Michael’s beaming smile (and the way that smile makes his cheeks dimple) and he _knows_ that Michael is seeing exactly what he is, and nothing else really matters because this is the best and the happiest he’s felt in months. All his worries about soul mates and all of that bullshit being lifted off of his shoulders in the span of only a few seconds.

When Michael is close enough to speak to him, they are wearing identical grins and their world is in full color. “Sup, dude,” Michael says, his hands going to his pockets. “Eh, you know, “Ray says, shrugging, “met my soul mate or something, no big deal, kind of a douche actually.” Michael rolls his eyes as he chuckles and punches Ray in the arm, “shut up, asshole, and take me to lunch. Then to the arcade, because video games are going to look _way_ cooler in color.” Ray laughs, and they walk out together into the rainy New York streets. But even with all the people, cold and rain, they smile and laugh because they somehow _found_ each other, and really, that’s all they ever needed.

**Author's Note:**

> im mostly into shiphaus now, but catch me at my tumblr: hauscrossing.tumblr.com :)


End file.
